Amazon today announced that Dave Clark, CEO of the company’s worldwide consumer division, will step down after 23 years in the role. In a note to leadership, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that Clark’s last day in the office will be July 1.
“[W]e still have more work in front of us to get to where we ultimately want to be in our consumer business. To that end, we’re trying to be thoughtful in our plans for Dave’s succession and any changes we make. I expect to be ready with an update for you over the next few weeks,” Jassy wrote in a the note, which was shared on the public About Amazon blog this morning. “While change is never easy, I’m optimistic about the plan that the consumer team has built and have confidence that if we stay focused on executing it, we’ll deliver the right experiences for customers and results for the business.”
Clark joined Amazon’s operations pathways program in May 1999. He played an increasingly large impact across the company, starting as an operations manager in Kentucky, growing to a general manger in the Northeast, stepping up to lead worldwide operations, and then eventually leading all of worldwide consumer. He headed teams that designed several generations of fulfillment centers and built out Amazon’s transportation network, among other accomplishments.
It’s unclear why Clark might’ve left so suddenly. In the blog post, Jassy claims that the decision was Clark’s own and that Clark intends to “pursue other opportunities.” Just two years earlier, Clark replaced Jeff Wilke as chief executive of Amazon’s retail business, which encoimpasses the retail website and the growing logistics empire that stocks and deliver items.